Archive for the ‘Margaret Ritchie’ Category

Shared Future

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009

SDLP Youth invited Social Development Minister, Margaret Ritchie to Queen’s University yesterday evening (Monday 30 November 2009) to speak to students about the work her department is doing in delivering a shared future.

There was a healthy mix of students and young people at the event.

Highlighting that 1 in 8 people in the north want to live in a shared neighbourhood, the Minister announced that she is looking at mechanisms that will integrate this public desire into the common selection scheme of the Housing Executive to facilitate this.

Minister Ritchie’s priority on assisting the most vulnerable, in terms of housing and social security, in developing the community’s capacity and in delivering a shared future resonated with a lot of people she was speaking with.

Margaret Ritchie outlined the real need for a dedicated Shared Future Strategy from our government. She rightly highlighted the embarrassment visited upon the north when the DUP and SF both produced their own version of a Shared Future Strategy.

The Minister caught the mood of the room when she said that the public are leaps ahead of the politicians on the need for a shared future. She is right, the public are ahead of our politicians on this, and if the DUP and SF fail to realise that there is a feeling among the public for a shared future, almost organic and innate in nature, then they will suffer the consequences of consistently putting their own party political desires ahead of everything else.

My generation are living a shared future more than any generation in the previous 40 to 50 years; we work, socialise and in many cases study together. So while it is important that government delivers from top down, in terms of shared spaces, legal protections and the like, the people will be building from bottom up on this issue – and our politicians will need to catch up even more.

As Margaret Ritchie said, it’s such a shame that the two dominant parties can’t look past their own selfish interests and put the needs of the people first, particularly on this fundamentally important issue.

Posted in DUP, Equality, Executive, Margaret Ritchie, SDLP, Youth | No Comments »

Margaret Ritchie comes west.

Thursday, February 26th, 2009

 

 

 

Margaret Ritchie, the Minister for Social Development paid a visit to Poleglass, in West Belfast yesterday evening to speak with a number of residents, representing resident groups, community orgainsations and well….. just themselves. (Most interestingly perhaps….. a group just set up representing working single parents).

From the SDLP West Belfast office was Alex Attwood, Tim Attwood and myself (responsible for the award winning photos)!!

Posted in Margaret Ritchie, Matthew McDermott, SDLP, West Belfast | No Comments »

WHATS IT ALL ABOUT? SF ATTACK SDLP (AGAIN)

Tuesday, December 16th, 2008

This blog will primarily be used as an insight into what really goes on in the politics of West Belfast; it will be composed of my view of the world and formed by my interaction with the constituents I speak to everyday among other things.

From time to time however, it will be necessary to comment on the wider political front and give my view of what’s happening and I think it only right to have my first post address the current political goings on at Stormont and SF’s bizarre attacks on the SDLP.

It was not a week ago that Carál Ni Chuilin, Sinn Fein North Belfast MLA was attacking Margaret Ritchie for her work on fuel poverty and saying this was not the issue. That the delay was a disgrace, and that ‘vulnerable people in our society’ should not be used ‘to score petty political points’.

 

We also had the bizarre and rather blatant dishonest (read lie) statement that NIE would benefit from any proposals Margaret Ritchie would introduce, something that DSD and NIE have exposed as untrue and misinformed. If that wasn’t embarrassing enough, that Sinn Fein where so misinformed, fast forward a week and what do we get: -

 

Sinn Fein finally accepting that fuel poverty is a major issue, accepting that Margaret Ritchie’s proposals where right and liking them so much that they stole them and claimed them as their own.

 

As for Ms Carál Ni Chuilin, if she had an issue with a delay she really needed to speak to Martin McGuinness, so that he could have gone and spoke to his boss, Peter Robinson (the team leader), and had this important issue put on the agenda. Everyone is aware that everything that goes on the agenda has to be to the liking of the DUP/SF and if fuel poverty was delayed then it was delayed because they wanted it delayed.

 

SF stealing and promoting SDLP policies and proposals as their own, that’s a new tactic isn’t it?

 

Snatching £30 million off DSD and the Housing Executive and hurting the most vulnerable people in society was the result – so yeah the most vulnerable people in our society should not be used to score petty political points. If Caral Ni Chuilin believes that, she should tell Martin McGuinness, so he can tell his leader.

 

Just on a side note, the new phrase coming from McGuinness HQ is that “the executive needs to work as a team”. “Margaret Ritchie is not a team player”. “Team”, “team”, “team”.

 

He’s right, Margaret Ritchie is not a team player, because the team Martin McGuinness is referring to is team DUP, Margaret doesn’t play for them as she demonstrated over C.T.I., SF play for them, promote their ideas and policies and exercise team DUP’s manifesto pledges – no Irish Language Act, no end to academic selection, and the list goes on.

 

Next post West Belfast……………

 

Posted in Assembly, Executive, Margaret Ritchie | 4 Comments »